Abbott will pay $105 in cash for every share of Exact Sciences, a total equity value of about $21 billion. The two companies announced the definitive agreement on November 20, 2025.
Add Exact’s estimated $1.8 billion of net debt, which Abbott’s financing absorbs, and the enterprise value comes to roughly $23 billion. Both boards approved the deal unanimously. Closing is expected in the second quarter of 2026, pending Exact shareholders and regulators.
What Abbott is buying
Exact, based in Madison, Wisconsin, is projected to bring in more than $3 billion in revenue this year, with organic sales growing at a high-teens rate. Its best-known product is Cologuard, a noninvasive colorectal cancer screening test. Under the hood, the catalogue is wider than that.
Oncotype DX helps decide treatment for breast cancer patients. Oncodetect looks for molecular residual disease, tiny traces of cancer left in the blood after treatment, to help gauge the risk of recurrence. Cancerguard is a blood test for multi-cancer early detection, and Exact says it picks up 50 cancer types. There is also a liver cancer test for people with cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis B, a hereditary risk test, and OncoExTra, which analyzes tumor DNA and RNA to guide therapy for advanced disease.
Abbott puts the U.S. cancer screening and precision oncology diagnostics segments at $60 billion. Once the deal closes, Exact becomes a subsidiary and Abbott’s total diagnostics sales will pass $12 billion a year. The acquisition, Abbott said, will be immediately accretive to revenue growth and gross margin.
The executives
“Exact Sciences’ innovation, its strong brand and customer-focused execution are unrivaled in the cancer diagnostics space,” said Robert B. Ford, Abbott’s chairman and chief executive. He pointed to Abbott’s record in diabetes, cardiovascular disease and infectious diseases as the reason it could now “take on the global challenge of cancer”.
Kevin Conroy, Exact’s chairman and chief executive, said Abbott’s global commercial reach would help expand access to the company’s tests. He thanked Exact’s 7,000 team members. Conroy will stay on in an advisory role to support the transition, and Exact will keep its presence in Madison.
Roughly 20 million people worldwide, 2 million of them Americans, are diagnosed with cancer each year, and Abbott expects the numbers to rise. Morgan Stanley advised Abbott and provided committed debt financing. Centerview Partners and XMS Capital Partners advised Exact.
Sources
Sources
- Abbott to acquire Exact Sciences for about $21B | MedTech Dive
- Abbott to acquire Exact Sciences, a leader in large and fast-growing …
